A lot of miles and a lot of words

Week ending 15^th February and week starting 16^th February

In the interests of neatness and consistency it would probably would have been better to get the blog report completed last night but as the Monday run is the crucial second half of the long run it seems better to wait until now. Last week I wrote that the running is getting more serious, the mileage has certainly increased. Unfortunately so has the risk of injury so I better be careful. (Sore hip again and a queasy stomach)

Nevertheless I would rate this training week as being on the very good scale- hitting a new high for mileage and also my fastest ever tempo run. As reported last time I ran 13 miles at 8.36 pace on the Monday early in the morning before heading to work. By the time I got home that evening I was beginning to have notions of pulling the car in off the road for a power nap. Thankfully though I got home in time to power nap on the couch instead for the hour. These regular power naps are ideal for getting that bit more rest and recovery in. It’s the hunger thing that is harder to deal with.

It certainly paid off as I was able to tag on 10 miles up in Cork at a tasty enough pace of 8.09. I felt very comfortable varying the route for the last 3 miles, it helped freshen the mind up and had I wanted to I could have ran well under sub 8 minute pace.

By Wednesday I wanted to run a 60 minute time trial. Very simple idea- run the first mile at a handy steady pace and see how many more miles could I cover in a single hour. The answer as it turned out happened to be 8.20 miles. I would have liked to have reached say 8.40 or ideally 8.5 miles but not a bad workout all the same.I ran a handy 7 minutes to cooldown. Were I racing in a 10 mile race I probably might have covered close to 8.5 miles (7 minute pace) but we might see about that in due course. Thursday was a more mundane affair running around the town for 7 miles at 8.20 pace.

Friday – my favourite running part of the week – as it is a rest day allowed me the space and strength to run a 5 mile tempo on the Saturday. I warmed up with a mile jog and then covered the 5 mile distance at 6.52 average pace. These tempos while tough are very instructive as I ran the same route all the time. It was also my fastest ever tempo run, in fact it was faster than some 5 mile races I have run over the years. I was helped by the flat(ish) nature of the course.

However as I am training for a ultra run it is the Sunday and Monday training runs that are the number one workouts in the training cycle. Sunday I ran in Mallow. I got down to the car park at 7.55 am running a hour pretty much on my own, covering 7.16 miles  before meeting up with the main gang at 9 am. Their plan was to cover 15 miles which suited me perfectly as I hoped to spend around 190 minutes on my feet.

The starting portion of the run was pretty tough – a uphill mile that lasted probably 1.5 miles but it was pretty flat after that. I found myself up the front with Sharon, Tadgh and Mike and at one stage the pace was hitting close to 7.15 per mile before I got sense slowed down and joined the more “sensible group” down the back. After all the object of the exercise was time on my feet, no point in flogging myself into the ground having run 22 miles in under 3 hours and facing into another 15 minutes of running. Ultra’s are all about time on your feet.

 By mile 18 coming back into Mallow I was finding the “squeeze” was threatening to hit me – you know that horrible feeling when the legs and back start to feel the pressure – but it passed after a few minutes of chat and finished off the run in reasonably comfortable fashion. I did find myself having to make up the mileage by running a few outs and backs on the Killarney run (always a pain) but job done. My garmin said I ran 3hrs 10 mins covering 22.39 miles. However after the water stop at mile mile 15 I failed to restart the watch for around 3- 4 minutes so I may covered close to another half a mile on top of that.

By the time I got back to the car park at the finish the feeling was one of tremendous relief and anticipation that the rest of the day would be spent lying the couch recovering and watching TV. The Sunday run also marked my highest mileage in any one week – 68.84 miles.

The recovery always helps as the next day I ran the 14 miles around Charleville in a very relaxed fashion. I started off running 9 minute miles but the legs and head started to wake up by mile 4 and I was well under 8.20 pace for the finish. Of course the mid term week off work should aid my training schedule even further.

Well done also to club mate Adrian Ryder for completing the Donadea 50 K in a very relaxed time of under 4hrs30minutes. Adrian is also training for the Connemara ultra but having run it before (in a time of under 5hrs50minutes) his expectations will be a lot more pronounced than mine.It’s a shame there is no 50K races closer to the taper. That said the Tralee marathon (while pricey) does look tempting.

Mileage for the week 68.84  miles

Monday 13 miles, Tuesday 10 miles at 8.06 pace, Wednesday 9 miles with 8.2 miles in 60 minutes, Thursday 7 miles at 8.20 pace, Saturday 7 miles with 5 miles at 6.52 pace, Sunday 22.84 miles at 8.30 pace.